“We are pleased to have you aboard the Emerald Queen, Monsieur Baudin,” Simone said with a gracious smile, “but I’m sorry, I cannot talk now. I must deal.”
“Can you not find someone to take your place?” Marcel pressed. “You are a beautiful woman, and I will not be happy until I have danced with you.”
“Then you’re doomed to a life of misery,” Tom cut in unexpectedly. “We have a rule that Emeraude doesn’t dance with customers.”
“Who are you?” Marcel swung on him belligerently.
Tom was not intimidated. “Captain of the Emerald Queen.”
“Surely, Capitaine, there are some rules that were made to be broken.” The Creole smiled confidently.
“Not this one,” Simone declared. “I’m sorry, Monsieur Baudin, but I cannot dance with you.”
Taking her refusal with ill grace, Marcel snarled, “You will dance with me.”
“No, she won’t,” Tom said definitely, rising. “And if you keep bothering her, I’ll stop and put you off on a sand bar, as sure as you’re standing there.”
Marcel’s face was mottled with suppressed rage, but he bowed stiffly and conceded, “I will talk to the lady later.”
Tom watched as the Creole stalked toward the bar, then he said to the others at the table, “Looks like I won’t be sitting in, after all, boys, but I need to borrow your dealer.” He motioned for Virgil to take Simone’s place.
“Keep an eye on that one,” Tom murmured as he passed Batiste.
The couple was scarcely in the office before the captain demanded, “What the hell was that all about?”
“What?” Simone was taken aback by the anger on his face. His eyes were two chips of blue flint.
“Who was that scoundrel?”
Simone opened her mouth to tell him, but she could not. Tom would surely insist on fighting Marcel, and, just as surely, he would be killed. She would not allow Marie LeVeau’s prediction to come true again. It didn’t take voodoo to know it. And she would not bring danger to Tom.
“Someone who wanted to dance with me.” She shrugged carelessly. “What’s wrong, cher?”
“Did you see his eyes? He’s crazy.” Braced against the edge of the desk, the captain raked his fingers through his curly hair in a harassed gesture. “I don’t want you to go back to Carnival tonight or any night while he’s aboard.”
“Don’t be silly. Tomorrow night in Vicksburg we’ll have not only passengers but townspeople who come for an evening’s gambling. They want to see Emeraude. I will not let that man chase me from my own casino. And I will not argue about it,” she warned.
“You are--”
“The stubbornest woman you’ve ever met,” she finished for him. Stepping over his long legs, she kissed him on the forehead.
Flinging an arm around her waist, he hugged her and muttered against her hair, “You’re the sassiest, too. Just be careful.”
That night after Carnival closed, Tom descended from the wheelhouse to see about Simone. When he rounded the cabin section, he found Batiste lying on a pallet in front of her door. Silently, the captain went to his cabin without waking her or her sentinel.
The next night, Simone went to the casino with Batiste as usual. They paused in the doorway, the petite woman and her huge bodyguard, and surveyed the room. It was packed and becoming more crowded by the moment, but neither saw Marcel among the gamblers. Perhaps he had gone ashore for the evening, Simone thought hopefully. Free of his pale-eyed scrutiny, she strolled between the tables, stopping at each to visit her clients, gently refusing each request for the pleasure of a dance.
“Mademoiselle Emeraude.” Virgil approached and handed her a piece of paper.
Looking down at it, she asked, “Where is he?”
“Over there.” He pointed to a young man slumped drunkenly in his seat at the poker table. “I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s all right,” Simone assured him. “I will speak to him.
“Monsieur Melançon?” The young man tried to focus bleary eyes on the vision who smiled so engagingly at him. “I must speak to you about your IOU. I fear we cannot accept your family plantation as collateral.”
“But it’s some of th’ fines’ cotton land in L-Louisi- . . . Pointe Coupee Parish.”
“Which is why you would feel great regret if you woke in the morning without it. Why not go with Virgil to the dining room before you retire to your cabin?” Simone suggested smoothly. “He is friends with the cook and can get you anything you like.”
“Even gumbo?” the young man mumbled as Virgil hauled him to his feet.
“The very best gumbo,” Virgil assured him, half-carrying him from the casino.
As Simone crossed the room toward the bar, she heard a voice sneer, “You made a fool of yourself, Bill. I told you she wouldn’t dance with you.”
She stopped in her tracks. The scoffing intonation was just the way Eugène Moreau had sometimes sounded when he patronized Jean-Paul so long ago. How she had hated it.
Nearby two young men, barely out of adolescence, sat at a table. The older was saying, “You wouldn’t listen. I told you about Miss Emeraude. She doesn’t dance with customers, and, even if she did, she wouldn’t dance with you.”
The younger man’s chin rose pugnaciously. “You take that back, Roy, before I call you out to settle this with fisticuffs.”
“Any time you think you’re big enough, Billy Boy,” his elder taunted.
“Pardon, messieurs.” Simone glided to stand beside them. Directing her attention at the younger lad, she said, “I did not have time before, but I would be delighted to dance with you now.”
“You . . .you would?” he stammered, his face aflame.
“Oui.” Smiling and hoping no one noticed she broke her own rule, she held out her hand. They left Bill’s brother with his mouth ajar.
“You sure showed Roy, Miss Emeraude,” Bill said admiringly. “He thinks he knows everything, and if you try to argue with him, he gets hot as a firecracker.”
Suddenly Marcel appeared at their side, his face dark with wrath, and seized Simone by the arm. “I thought you didn’t dance with customers.”
She looked around desperately, spying Batiste across the room with Tom. The instant she caught the big man’s eye, he began to push his way through the crowd, the captain on his heels.
Reassured that help was on the way, Simone pulled from Marcel’s grip and said coolly, “As a rule I do not, monsieur, but tonight I broke the rule.”
He stared at her in mute rage, then he whirled on the hapless Bill and began to choke him.
In a split second, Roy had vaulted the table and thrown himself on Marcel’s back, trying to pull him off his brother.
“Get away or I will kill you!” Marcel shouted over his shoulder.
“Not till you let go of my little brother!” Roy yelled.
Straightening with a roar, Marcel yanked from the older boy’s hold and wheeled on him, his eyes alight with maniac fury.
Simone looked desperately for Batiste. He was elbowing his way through the crowd that had congregated to watch the confrontation.
“Monsieur Baudin.” Simone caught his arm as he advanced on Roy. He did not even look at her as he shook her off. His pale eyes were fixed on the object of his current fury.
The young man retreated. “Stay back, I warn you,” he ordered nervously. When Marcel did not halt, Roy reached under his jacket and pulled out a small pistol.
“Go on,” he shouted, shakily pointing the weapon at him. “Get out of here.”
“Do you think you can frighten me?” Marcel laughed quietly. “I’ve killed a dozen men in duels, and I have never been wounded, not even scratched. You cannot hurt me.” He walked slowly toward Roy, who backed off another step.
“I tell you, I’ll shoot,” Roy warned, but the Creole continued to advance.
When Marcel was at point-blank range, Roy pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“The cap m
isfired,” someone murmured as the young man stared at the pistol in his hand in horror.
“You see, I am invincible,” Marcel crooned, smiling. Then, without warning, he flung himself at Roy.
Before Marcel could harm the young man, Batiste captured the Creole from behind. He carried him, kicking and cursing, to the deck and flung him over the side.
“Now you are both invincible and wet,” Emeraude’s bodyguard called as Marcel foundered, cursing and screaming, in the muddy water beside the dock. “You’ll find your luggage on the landing, sir. You are not welcome aboard the Emerald Queen.”
Tom might have echoed Batiste’s words to Baudin when he saw Devlin Hennessey scramble to board the Emerald Queen the next morning.
Smiling brightly, the gambler raced up the gangplank just as it was being pulled aboard and called, “Top of the mornin’, Cap’n.”
“What are you doing here, Hennessey?” Tom greeted him coolly.
“Looking for a good poker game. I thought I’d try me luck on the Emerald Queen, where the food is better, the beds softer, and the women lovelier.”
“Women?” Tom frowned.
“Woman,” Dev corrected unabashedly.
“When we didn’t see you for a while, I thought you either got killed in a crooked card game or got smart enough to leave Simone alone.”
“Sorry to disappoint ye on both counts. I couldn’t stay away any longer. I have to see Simone. How is she?”
Tom glared at him through narrowed eyes. “I’m warning you, Hennessey. If you do anything to hurt her . . . “
“I wouldn’t hurt her. I’m in love with her, too. ‘Tis the reason I’m back.” He grinned at Tom’s obvious irritation. “What’s the matter, Cap’n? Can’t ye do with a bit of friendly competition?”
“Did better without it,” Tom snapped, and he stalked away without a backward look.
The Emerald Queen churned through the night, causing waves to slap softly against the sleeping riverbank. Zack maneuvered the great steamboat through treacherous currents, dodging newly formed sandbars, performing his job with skillful ease.
The decks were dark and deserted. Only Tom lingered on the bow of the main deck, smoking, fighting a continued battle with jealousy. All night he had watched Hennessey with Simone. She had welcomed Dev back cordially, showing him nothing more than friendship. Still, the doting attention the gambler paid her had irked the captain.
Tom propped one booted foot on an oily coil of rope and leaned against a deck post, frowning when he felt the paddlewheels slow. Up ahead, he spied what looked to be a logjam in the water. The Emerald Queen approached it slowly, carefully. Suddenly a call came from the stern. “Pirates!”
Tom swore under his breath. He hadn’t heard of river pirates along this stretch of the Mississippi in years, and they usually attacked keelboats or tiny packets, not huge steamboats.
As men poured from the forecastle and the passenger cabins, armed with knives, swords, pistols, and tiny derringers, Tom ran to the stern to see several deckhands fighting off the pirates who approached either side of the huge boat in dugouts. A cry went up from the bow as more swarmed from the “logs” onto the deck.
“Fire!” Tom shouted when a lantern was knocked from its post and rolled among the cotton bales. Tossing a couple of the burning bales overboard, he recruited several passengers, pointing toward some buckets. “Use river water to douse the bales,” he ordered, “or the boat’ll go up like tinder.” They set to work immediately, forming a bucket brigade.
Through blinding smoke, Tom saw pirates streaming up the companionways and ladders to the other decks.
“Simone!” He roared her name as his personal battle cry. He had to be sure she was safe. Reaching the stairs to the boiler deck, he raced up them, throwing pirates down as he passed them.
On the second deck, the captain found his crew fighting amid the smoke. Coughing and choking, he saw Hennessey and Virgil, back to back battling the intruders.
Tom fought his way to the companionway, seizing a pirate who was attempting to climb to the third deck. As he dragged him down, the man’s head bounced on every tread until he landed in a heap at the bottom. Tom scrambled over him to the next deck.
Finding it deserted, he hoped none of the raiders had reached the hurricane deck and the cabins. But he heard the sharp report of a rifle as he was about to clamber up the companionway and was forced to dodge as a pirate plummeted from the deck above. Stepping over the dead man, he scaled the ladder cautiously.
Ulysses leaned out of the pilothouse, a rifle in his hands. Through the window, Zack could be seen at his post, steering the Emerald Queen past abandoned dugouts.
“Simone!” The captain raced toward her suite. The door to the deck stood open. Stepping in, he saw no one was inside, but heard sounds of battle in the casino below.
His feet barely skimmed the steps of the spiral stair case as he whirled down it. He dashed from the office at its foot into Carnival, where he found Simone, wearing a long white nightgown and armed with her father’s sword. She and Batiste battled four pirates among the gaming tables and roulette wheels. Three other miscreants lay unconscious on the floor.
Nearly limp with relief, he watched the pair herd their opponents to the far end of the room, where Gisèle stood on the billiard table, cue in hand. The maid hit the intruders over the head when they were close enough, then coolly tallied her score.
Suddenly Simone cried, “Tom, behind you!”
Tom spun to find a muscular raider creeping through the door from the deck, his knife drawn. Simone’s shout diverted the pirate’s attention long enough for Tom to spring. The captain seized the hand holding the knife but could not break the hold. Locked in a struggle of muscle and will, they staggered out on deck and disappeared from Simone’s view.
“Tom!” she screamed, trying to work her way toward the door through which he and his adversary had gone. But a wiry, gap-toothed man entered the casino through the opposite door. Pleased at finding a helpless female, he gripped her wrist and whirled her around. His smile disappeared when she faced him with a sword.
“Put that down, girlie,” he said, releasing her arm. “You don’t wanna hurt yourself with that thing.”
“I’d rather hurt you,” she countered grimly, taking the en garde position.
“I hate to do this,” he said almost sadly, pulling a pistol from his belt. “Hate to ruin that pretty face of yours.”
Before he could aim, Simone struck his wrist with the flat of her sword. Crying out at the numbing blow, he dropped his pistol. His beady eyes narrowed as she backed him against the wall. Like a trapped animal, he looked around furtively, suddenly seizing a billiard cue from a rack nearby.
He came out of his comer, swinging the cue with all his strength. She tried to parry his attack, but when the stick made contact with her blade, it jarred her very bones, and her sword did little damage to the cue. She retired a few steps.
“Come on, girlie,” the pirate sneered. Circling her, he poked at her with the cue. “Ain’t you gonna teach me some fancy fencing?”
“Très bien,” she muttered. “The first lesson is never to leave your side uncovered.” Performing a flèche, she backed the man against the billiard table. Then, with a quick balestra, she ran his shoulder through. His enraged howl of pain was cut short when Gisèle added another to her score.
Satisfied Batiste was finishing off his opponent, Simone dashed out on deck in search of Tom. Her eyes streaming from the smoke, she saw two figures locked in combat against one of the paddleboxes. Tom’s attacker had lost his knife and now tried to bend Tom backward, to force his head through the slats where the huge paddle turned. Simone’s breath caught in her throat. He would be crushed!
Tom managed an upper cut to the man’s jaw, knocking him back. Straightening, he readied himself to aim a powerful swing, but suddenly his opponent was not there. Instead Tom saw Simone, smoke-stained and bedraggled, her hair cascading down her back. Standing at the head
of the companionway, her face set and grim, she gazed at the deck below.
She had caught the man off guard when she pushed. Now he writhed, cursing and clutching at his leg, as the ebbing battle swirled around him.
“Simone.” Tom touched her shoulder gently.
“My own.” Her face crumbling, she turned to him and sobbed, “I thought he was going to kill you.”
He enfolded her in his arms. “Are you all right?”
“Oui,” she wept. She lifted her face toward him, the tears making startling white streaks in the soot on her cheeks. “But I would never be all right again if something happened to you.”
His arms tightened around her. “It’s all over now,” he whispered, stroking her hair.
“I love you, Tom,” she said simply.
“I know, darlin’,” he answered, smiling down at her tenderly. “Didn’t I always tell you so?”
As they kissed, neither saw Dev Hennessey climbing up from below. But halfway up the companionway, he saw them. With a sad smile, he backed down the steps.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
From the guest room of Tom’s house, Simone watched as leaves skittered across the lawn, carried on the January wind. Her wedding day had dawned cold and cloudy, but even the ominous weather did not alter her joyful mood.
“I hope it does not rain,” Gisèle fretted. “Rain on your wedding day is an ill omen.”
“It won’t.” Simone smiled. “Wakefield will not allow it. Calm down, Gisèle. You’re making me nervous.”
“You should be nervous,” the maid answered, fussing with Simone’s lace veil. “You’re the bride.”
“You are the maid of honor, and you’re nervous enough for both of us,” her mistress retorted.
“I think I should go down to the parlor and see whether all the guests have arrived,” Gisèle suggested.
“How is everyone getting along?” Simone asked, conscious of the oddly mixed group that waited downstairs Kaintock, Creole, and Cajun, black and white.
The Emerald Queen (A Vieux Carré Romance) Page 27
